


The Floating World

by 100demons



Series: blood of the covenant [2]
Category: Naruto
Genre: ANBU - Freeform, F/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-31
Updated: 2015-05-31
Packaged: 2018-04-02 05:33:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4048087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/100demons/pseuds/100demons
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Growing up, Shikamaru thought, didn’t imply a physical maturation so much as a spiritual one, souls broken and healed over and then broken again to fit the expanding multitudes of oneself. He carried within himself the child who clung to his mother’s hand at the Academy entrance ceremony, the boy who slipped on a stiff-backed chuunin vest for the first time, the man who’d laid his teacher and his father to rest, with gentle, bloodied hands.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Floating World

Sai set down the pile of pork buns and croquettes down on the heavily scored wooden table, a spacious round table big enough to comfortably seat five broad shouldered ninja. Sakura’s piles of reference materials, paperwork, research reports and patient files more than covered the entire surface, spilling over into several chairs and onto the floor. He moved over a pile of highlighted research papers to the side to clear some space, ignoring Sakura’s distracted hiss as he casually disrupted whatever delicate paper ecosystem she had engineered.

“Remember the jam spilled on your last report?” he reminded her, unmoved. “You only complain about it every time we have dinner together.”

Sakura scowled deeply. “It took me a _week_ to replot the data.”

“How terrible,” Sai said, giving her one of the insincere smiles that he knew would annoy her, and handed her a plate full of food.

Sakura stuck her tongue out at him and grabbed a pork bun, still taking notes with her free hand. “Thank you.”

He settled into his own uncomfortable wooden seat, back against the wall, his eyes automatically scanning over the available exit points. They had one of the better tables in the crowded HQ mess hall, tucked away in a corner with unobstructed line of sight to most of the room, and very close to several of the emergency ceiling hatches.

It helped that Sakura’s reputation kept everyone else at bay, enveloping the table in a small private bubble.

Mostly everyone.

Sai bit into his croquette, curry sauce spilling over the sides of the panko crust.

By the time Nara approached the table, Sai had finished two of the croquettes and a pork bun and was getting started on a second.

“This seat free?”

Sai considered stuffing more food in his mouth and ignoring him entirely.

Nara raised an eyebrow.

Sai swallowed and gestured at the only chair available. He gently kicked at Sakura’s ankle, catching the half eaten pork bun that fell from her hand before it spattered all over her notes.

“Is something-- oh!” Sakura’s face brightened as she looked up, beaming up at Nara. “Shikamaru!”

Nara straddled the chair with an easy grace, folding his long arms over the top of the backrest.

“‘lo Sakura,” he said, his mouth curled up in a not quite smile, the corners of his eyes crinkling. He turned towards Sai and gave him a serious nod, kohai to senpai.

Sai dipped his head, acknowledging him.

“You joined up last month, right?” Sakura grinned at him, finally putting her pen down and shutting the the report folder closed. “I know it’s late, but congrats! I heard from Ino right around when you were being pulled in for interviews during the recruiting process.”

“I’m pretty sure she knew I made it in before the Commander did,” Nara shrugged. “Did you come in around the same time as well?”

Sakura shook her head, a few loose strands of hair coming free of her bun and framing her face. “I’m not an official field agent,” she said. “No mask or body armour for me. I do work on the side for ANBU as one of the medics cleared to handle your cases, and I’ve been helping out Shizune with getting the advanced medic certification program going on in HQ. I get all the free food and the pay without having to bleed my life out in a muddy ditch.”

“I’m surprised you’ve found the time to work here, what with your research and your medic duties at the hospital,” Nara observed, his eyes half-hooded.

“Coffee,” Sakura said, sighing. “Lots and lots of coffee, which reminds me, I brought a thermos with me today, I think... ”

“It’s underneath your seat, front pocket of your pack,” Sai said quietly, fishing out a couple of packets of sugar crystals he’d swiped from the concessions stand earlier from a trouser pocket. She smiled at him gratefully, the tips of her fingers grazing his palm as she grabbed the sugar.

“So, how’s life as a spook going so far?”

“It’s…” Nara paused, his eyebrows furrowing together. “Way more paperwork than I ever thought,” he finally said. “I feel like I’m writing three times as many reports than I did before. What a drag.”

“God, I feel like sometimes ninety percent of being a jounin is just holding a pen,” Sakura said feelingly. “If I had known this was what it would really be like, I think I might have just become a pharmacist or something, like my Mom wanted.” She swept a hand over her sprawling mass of work almost affectionately.

Sai didn’t quite understand the social minutiaes of the conversation or even the point of complaining about paperwork, Danzou having considered written reports to be inefficient at best and security risks at worst. Most ROOT missions ended in a verbal report and then a mental debriefing conducted by Yamanaka, with Danzou always watching in the back. Sai thought he had written a grant total of six reports in his life, all after being assigned to Team Seven.

“Does the bureaucracy get worse the longer you’re here or does it level out after a bit?”

The question hung in the air for a fraction too long and Sai realized that Nara was now talking to him.

Sakura shook her head. “Trust me, you don’t want to hear the answer,” she said, easily covering up the uncomfortable gap in the conversation as Sai worked out how to make small talk in his head.

“So it is that bad,” Nara said, as if the awkward break had never happened, except for the small twitch in his eyebrow. “Good thing they don’t advertise it, otherwise they’d never have anyone decide to sign up.”

“I don’t write any,” Sai finally said.

Nara’s eyes flew open all the way, looking properly awake for the first time. “What?”

“I told you,” Sakura laughed, sipping at her thermos. She’d finally finished her first pork bun and Sai handed a croquette over to her, taking advantage of the fact that she had finally stopped writing for the moment to nudge her into eating more properly.

“How is this even possible?” Shikamaru demanded, coming alive at the prospect of someone getting away with less work than he was. “Who are you blowing?”

Nara was finally coming onto a more familiar topic; Sai knew all about genital related humor after two years of experience irritating Naruto. “Someone with a bigger penis than you,” he said, enjoying the way Sakura’s cheeks flushed.

“Seriously?” Nara said, looking like he would happily spend the rest of his life on his knees. “Because I definitely would not mind sucking dick if I could get out of writing requisitions forms for the rest of my life.”

“Oh my god,” Sakura choked on her food. “Why is this even my life right now.” She kicked vengefully at Sai’s shin, the tip of her steel toed boot digging into the hard bone of his shin.

“End my misery and just tell him the truth, please.”

Sai huffed a not-quite laugh and shrugged. “I don’t have to write any because I don’t have to.”

Nara gave him a blank look.

Sakura sighed. “He doesn’t have to write any because he’s a member of the Guard,” she explained.

Nara’s eyes grew almost uncomfortably sharp. Sai wondered how he had ever thought Nara had ever looked tired before. “The Hokage’s Guard?”

Sakura nodded, not quite hiding the proud tilt of her jaw. “He’s the one who gets stuck trailing after Kakashi-sensei all day, making sure he doesn’t trip and fall in public and his robes don’t have any stains. And, you know, also making sure he stays alive.”

“We report directly to the Commander,” Sai added quietly.

“Huh,” Nara said, looking thoughtful. “So there is a kind of perk to this after all. Work hard, stay alive, and maybe earn the honour of guarding the Hokage. Plus no paperwork.” Nara barked out a short laugh. “You were right, you’re definitely sucking massive dick.”

“I don’t have a gag reflex,” Sai offered.

Sakura turned a very interesting shade of pink, clashing horribly with her hair.

Nara gave him a snarky grin. “So that’s what they look for when recruiting for his bodyguards. I’ll keep it in mind. Well, that and at least five years of distinguished service in blacks. Did you get special dispensation when Hatake-sama pulled you in?”

Sai tilted his head. “Special dispensation?”

“To make up for your service time.” Nara suddenly looked keenly at him.

Sai flicked a quick look at Sakura, her lips pressed tightly together. She shook her head, very slightly.

“Sure,” Sai said carefully.

Nara’s eyes didn’t miss anything. “You lucky bastard,” he said easily, letting the topic drop.

“Oi, Nara!” A short, stocky woman waved over at the table from across the room, her cropped hair glinting a dark blue in the fluorescent light. Sai ran through the roster list on his head, placing her as a new arrival sometime after he was assigned to surveil Naruto. “Time to get going, you bum.” She didn’t make any motion to move closer. Sai very much enjoyed the advantages of sitting with a member of Team Seven.

Nara badly stifled a groan. “I’ve gotta get going, my squad’s hitting the tactics room after dinner.”

“You’re under Vice Commander Kurosawa?” Sai asked.

Nara ran a hand through his ponytail, grimacing. “More like Slave Driver Kurosawa. Haven’t had a moment to myself since I joined up. See you around, yeah?”

He pulled himself up to his feet in one graceful motion, waving goodbye to Sakura. To Sai, he gave a small salute, two fingers against a temple, a shade more respectful than his earlier nod.

“Say hello to Ino and Chouji for me,” Sakura smiled at him and watched him leave the mess hall, towed away by the blue haired woman. She was chewing on her bottom lip again, close to working open an old scab.

Sai pressed his thumb against the corner of her mouth, his fingers cradling the small point of her chin.

She blew out a small breath and leaned into the touch. “Sorry, bad habit.”

He swiped the pad of his thumb over the round bow of her lip, gently, before pulling away. It was as much personal contact he could stand showing in public, even alone at a table tucked away in a corner.

“Sometimes I forget how scary smart Shikamaru can be,” she said, her mouth wry. “The only good thing, I suppose, is that he’s also kind enough to let sleeping dogs lie.”

“My service record is more of an open secret at this point,” Sai pointed out. “Most of the vets know that I’m associated in some way with Danzou-sama, considering my age and standing in the Corps. I’ve been marked since I was twelve, even if I’ve only started serving in the main branch since joining the Guard.”

“You think he’ll figure it out?”

He shrugged. “I think he already had suspicions and we’ve just confirmed most of them for him.”

“Damn,” Sakura swore. “Still, it’s Shikamaru. He won’t be silly and and make a fuss about it.”

“Not if he’s on Kurosawa’s squad,” Sai agreed, rescuing the thermos on the table before Sakura’s elbow banged into it. He snapped the lid shut and put it far away from the report that she had been working on.

“What do you mean?” Sakura picked up another pork bun and tore it in half, offering a piece to Sai.

“He’s been here a month and he’s already been placed under the Vice Commander’s supervision.” Sai bit into the bun, chewing thoughtfully. “They’re pushing for him to move up. I wouldn’t be surprised if he gets assigned his own squad by the end of his first year.”

“Huh,” Sakura considered. “It’s a good way to make it to Jounin Commander by thirty. If he wants it, that is.”

Sai made a noncommittal noise. “How much more work do you have to do before your night shift tonight at the hospital?” He prodded a little despairingly at the closest pile of books sitting in front of him.

“What night shift?” She favoured him with a coy smile, her eyes glittering.

Sai fumbled for something to say amidst the sudden wreckage of all his trains of thought. “But I thought you had. Work.”

“Not tonight,” Sakura said, extending a hand to him. “Kasumi’s on because her wife’s birthday is in a few days, so I agreed to cover for her then. We traded off.”

“Oh,” said Sai.

He took her hand, her calloused fingers wrapping around his wrist. Flickers of her light chakra sank into his skin, deliciously warm.

“ _Oh_ ,” he said again as Sakura pulled him up from his seat in one smooth graceful motion, her touch a brand upon his skin.

“Let’s go to your place, Sai.”

 

* * *

 

Tohru leapfrogged happily over his head, blue-streaked hair framing her face in a wild crown. Shikamaru felt her shadow pass over his face, tangling briefly with his chakra before it broke free, as she landed on her pinkie finger in front of him, perfectly upside down.

“Fifty laps,” she laughed and fell to her feet with an easy grace. “Beat you again, Nara.”

Shikamaru rolled his eyes. “You have a leaf in your hair, senpai,” he said instead, pointing out the red maple leaf fluttering behind her ear.

“Oh, lucky,” Tohru said, picking it out of her hair and setting it alight with a flick of her finger. The ash scattered from her fingers, picked up by the afternoon breeze. “So what is that now, twenty wins to zero in my favor, and another round of coffee on you.” Her grin showed all of the sharp points of her teeth.

“Black and two sugars, extra large, I remember,” Shikamaru sighed and made his way over to where Squad Leader Kurosawa was sitting over by the outcropping, a stack of reports in his hands. By his side, Kiyoko was folded into a meditative pose, faint wisps of chakra fluttering at the edges of her body, flowing and fading in time with her breathing.

“Tea or coffee, sir?”

Kurosawa looked up, his short buzzed hair at odds with the delicate build of his face and his long thick lashes. A thick ropey scar cut across his cheek, just hitting the corner of his mouth, before tailing over the edge of his jaw. “Just plain coffee flavored coffee for me,” he said, rubbing at a faded ink splash on the back of his hand.

Kiyoko opened her eyes, chakra fading away into her skin. “Black tea for me, Nara-kun, with honey. I see Tohru beat you again this time.”

Shikamaru shrugged. “It’s not much of a competition in the first place. Running’s not exactly my strong suit.”

“Something I’ve been hoping to beat out of you,” Kurosawa said, a little dry. “Now that the two of you have finished cooling down, we can break for dinner. We’ll meet again tomorrow morning at 8 for the new mission briefing.”

“Sir,” Tohru saluted, then flickered over to Kiyoko’s side, pulling up the older woman.

Shikamaru automatically fell into place next to Kurosawa as Tohru did with Kiyoko, taking on the pile of reports that Kurosawa had been looking at.

They walked off the training field in a companionable silence, Tohru and Kiyoko walking a little farther ahead, black and blue heads bent together. Shikamaru caught a few snatches of their conversation as it drifted towards him and gathered that they were discussing the finer details on the art of breaking other people’s bones.

“Wednesday, is it,” Kurosawa said idly, except Kurosawa didn’t _do_ idle.

“Yes, sir,” Shikamaru said.

“Hm,” Kurosawa said thoughtfully. “You’ll be dining in the regular mess then?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Give my regards to Sakura-sama when you see her.”

Shikamaru very carefully didn’t miss his footing. “Yes, sir.”

It still caught him off guard, sometimes, that people were beginning to call Team Seven the next Sannin; to reconcile the image of just Sakura, who spent hours and hours with Ino on the phone chatting about groceries and how the upcoming monsoons were going to affect her windowsill flowers with _Sakura-sama_ , who bore Tsunade’s mark and had laid her healing hands on the entire village. Shikamaru brushed a finger against the edge of his ANBU blacks. They were all changed by the war, their old selves stretched out like rubber bands pushed past the point of recoil, into something different, something _more_.

Growing up, Shikamaru thought, didn’t imply a physical maturation so much as a spiritual one, souls broken and healed over and then broken again to fit the expanding multitudes of oneself. He carried within himself the child who clung to his mother’s hand at the Academy entrance ceremony, the boy who slipped on a stiff-backed chuunin vest for the first time, the man who’d laid his teacher and his father to rest, with gentle, bloodied hands.

There was no growing smaller, only ever forward.

“Assuming I see her, sir,” he added, the rest of his brain catching up with the conversation at hand.

Kurosawa snorted. “Don’t think I don’t know you have dinner with her every week at HQ around this time. You’re from the same graduating class at the Academy, if I remember correctly. Word gets around fast enough in this place.”

“Yes, along with Sai, sir.”

Kurosawa tilted his head in acknowledgement, his face stilling into a practiced blankness that reminded Shikamaru of his conversation with Sai a few weeks ago.

“If I may be so impertinent,” Shikamaru began before Kurosawa waved a heavy hand, cutting him off.

“Go on, skip the nonsense.”

“Sai is my senior in the Corps, despite being my age. In fact, he serves as one of the Guard,” Shikamaru began slowly, feeling his way into the conversation. “And yet I know that the Corps’ enlistment age has been set at 18 for most of the past decade.” And only after certain lethal candidates had made it through, one of which had ended up as the current Hokage and another had ended up murdering his entire clan minus one in a single night.

Kurosawa grunted. “That’s not a question.”

“I don’t even know how to phrase it,” Shikamaru admitted, brushing his hair back from his forehead.

“Then tell me what you know about the situation, Nara.” Kurosawa’s voice turned crisp, tone automatically straightening Shikamaru out of his slouch and pulling his hands out of his pockets.

“Late addition to Team Seven after Uchiha Sasuke’s desertion, uniquely talented with seals and ink jutsu. A genius without very many social skills, of which Konoha has no lack of. He’s ruthless and doesn’t hesitate to kill, more suited to solitary work from what I’ve seen during the war, which might explain his placement under Hatake-sama’s supervision.” If there was any team that could drill the concept of teamwork into a thick genius skull, it had to be the one with Naruto and Sakura, the two most irritatingly persistent people he knew, second to his own mother.

“And?” Kurosawa prompted, his black eyes unreadable beneath his thick brow.

“Never passed through the Academy, as far as I can tell.”

Kurosawa’s brow crept up towards his thinning hairline.

“When I checked with the Archives, they informed me that his papers had been stored in a warehouse that burnt down during Orochimaru’s Invasion a few years back during the disrupted chuunin exams.” Shikamaru’s mouth thinned out. “So of course his current records only date back a little before his placement on Team Seven, what little isn’t blacked out under a classified seal. But I cross referenced with the Academy records still stored on-site, which go back to the last fifteen years, and there’s nothing that documents his enrollment.” Nor his subsequent placement on a genin team under a jounin-sensei.

He’d had Ino’s help digging through the records, and her status as an Intel officer had helped him get access to the documents much faster than if he’d gone about through the normal channels, but only after she’d strong-armed him into promising that he would tell her right away what he managed to find out about Sai.

He was beginning to regret pulling in that favor now, as he watched Kurosawa digest all of this.

“You’ve done your homework, I see,” Kurosawa noted, not looking very surprised.

“I didn’t raise this with you to make trouble, sir.” Shikamaru’s hands crept closer and closer to his pockets, shoulders slumping in habit even with Kurosawa’s stern eyebrows slanting at him. “But something doesn’t add up.”

“You been telling me a lot of things, Nara, but nothing that takes the form of a question,” Kurosawa laughed, a harsh cigarette roughened burr that used to make Shikamaru flinch. He had learned to manage the spiking twinge in his chest. “But I’ll ask it for you, since you seem so hesitant on speaking it aloud. ‘Is this man trustworthy?’ is what you want to ask me.”

Shikamaru inclined his head. “Sir.”

“My answer for that should be this: if the goddamned Hokage trusts him to watch his six, that should be enough. But the trouble is, you’re paid to be a clever, suspicious little bastard and you can’t leave things well enough alone.”

Kurosawa let out a controlled breath, dark eyes flicking over the trail that cut through the heavily wooded training area and lead back to the cluster of buildings that comprised ANBU HQ.

“Technically speaking, sir, my parentage was never in legal question.”

The corner of Kurosawa’s mouth quirked, the heavy scar twisting it into a sharp grimace. “I mean to iron the smartass out of you by the end of your assignment with my squad. Though I see you don’t deny the other qualifiers.”

Shikamaru allowed himself a small grin. “No, sir.”

Kurosawa sighed, a touch meditatively. “In truth, I honestly can’t tell you much more than what you’ve already dug up. I’m bound not only by the security classification but my own ignorance as well. Before my predecessor’s death during the war, I had only been in the Corps for about six years. As you can see, there were a great many spaces left to fill and the Vice Commander’s spot the least of it.”

Shikamaru nodded in acknowledgement. The Commander, Tenzou-sama himself had only been appointed after the war’s end, though he’d been in distinguished service since about Hatake-sama’s time in the mask.

Kurosawa slowed, then stopped in the middle of the path, sandaled feet settling noiselessly in the worn dirt. Tohru’s head jerked back, short blue curls flying with the sudden motion.

 _Go on_ , Kurosawa signed swiftly, gracefully, his fingers moving with the fluidity of a ninjutsu man. _We’ll be along soon._

Tohru nodded and trotted ahead with Kiyoko, who sent Shikamaru an obscure look over her shoulder before moving on.

Reflexively, Shikamaru sent tendrils of his chakra into his shadow, growing long and heavy in the late afternoon sunlight, and sank it deep into the earth. He sensed no others shadows cast by human form within a fifty yard radius, but Kurosawa’s and a rapidly retreating Tohru and Kiyoko.

 _All clear,_ Shikamaru signed in standard ANBU code.

Kurosawa inclined his head in approval. “Good. Obviously, what I speak of is to be considered speculation and not to be taken seriously or even repeated to others.”

Shikamaru raised an eyebrow. “Sir?”

Kurosawa smiled at him grimly, scar twisting the flesh of his cheek so the shiny pink skin puckered strangely. “You brought up the enrollment age before. There was always talk of the psychological cost of this work, especially on the young. After the Uchiha massacre, well.” He barked out a short laugh, not sounding particularly amused.

“The Council ended up passing up a new law about six or seven years ago, mandating a minimum age requirement. I joined up not long after this and I met a few of the younger agents, grandfathered in as they had joined before the new law was put into place.”

The right numbers begin to fall into place, Shikamaru thought, eyes widening.

“Most of them were sixteen or seventeen and their grandfathered status wouldn’t be much of a concern once a little time passed. But some…” Kurosawa trailed off, shrugging his broad shoulders.

“But some…” Shikamaru echoed, very softly. When he was twelve he had just earned his forehead protector; when Sai was twelve, he’d likely been cloaked in black and bone white, marked with ANBU’s bloody red tattoo. They had both been chosen in their own ways to serve the village. “I don’t think it’s too much of an exaggeration to guess that they were born to the work.”

“Just so,” Kurosawa said, rubbing a hand over his buzzed haircut, and slowly began to walk again, his footsteps steady and balanced. “By the Hokage’s grace, your friend seems to be the only remnant still serving.”

Shikamaru shifted the stack of reports tucked into the crook of his arm and followed his squad leader, just a step behind. “I suppose it’s pointless to ask the _why_ of it, sir. Or even the how.”

“Pointless?” Kurosawa shook his head. “No, but perhaps not the right time. I thought we’d be having this sort of conversation in a few years, not months, and in better company than mine.”

The Commander’s name was unvoiced but distinctly heard all the same.

“Thank you, sir,” Shikamaru said, quiet. “You didn’t have to answer me at all.”

“You’re a clever, suspicious little subordinate born in wedlock,” Kurosawa said, not quite grinning. “If I didn’t satisfy your curiosity now, who knows what rocks you might have overturned carelessly in your quest to find the truth.”

“I don’t like complications,” Shikamaru said sturdily. “I would have kept it quiet and discreet. And I will.”

Kurosawa brushed his hand against the silver leaf stitched over his heart in a fleeting salute, the curve of his mouth almost fond. “You’ll make a proper ANBU agent yet, Nara.”

Shikamaru saluted him back automatically, fist over his heart.

They had reached the end of the path now, just a few feet away from the building housing the administrative offices and simulation rooms. The barracks and mess hall lay just behind plain stone building, sprawling across several acres of heavy forest at the foot of the Hokage mountain.

“I’ll run these over for you,” Shikamaru began before Kurosawa took back the reports, shaking his head.

“No, go on to your meal. You aren’t late, are you?”

Shikamaru felt for his shadow, as instinctive to him now as breathing, and checked its angle. “Only half past four, sir.”

“I’ll never get tired of watching you do that,” Kurosawa observed, hefting the pile of reports against his side. “Though I suppose it’s a little trickier on a rainy day.”

Shikamaru flashed the watch on his wrist. “I also have this, sir,” he said, the corner of his mouth wry.

“Laps around the village tomorrow, you smartass. Lots of laps,” Kurosawa reminded him, none too gently. “I can kill two birds with one stone that way.”

“Yes, sir,” Shikamaru sighed, knowing that he had earned it. “Until tomorrow.”

“Don’t forget to give Sakura-sama my regards.” Kurosawa paused, his dark eyes flickering over Shikamaru’s blacks and Konoha’s symbol stitched in silver over his heart. “And to Sai as well. He bears a wolf mask now, right?”

Shikamaru thought back to the few glimpses of tearing fangs he managed to catch, reversed mask hanging from Sai’s belt, showing only its pale white underbelly. “Yes, sir.”

Kurosawa’s eyes lit up with a strange light. “I rather thought so. He’s worn many masks before, but I think that one will be his last.”

“Sir?”

“You’ll see it if you know it,” he said cryptically, then waved a hand at Shikamaru. “Go on, I’ll see you in the morning.”

Kurosawa walked off the end of the path and disappeared through the single door leading into the administrative offices, leaving him with the muted birdsong and perhaps even more questions than he had begun with.

Shikamaru ran his fingers over a worn silver lighter in his pocket and started off towards the mess hall, shoulders hunched as he turned the conversation over in his head.

He had a lot to think about before dinner.


End file.
